Nvidia Rushes To Complete GPU Orders Before US Sanctions On China Take Effect

Nvidia is trying to prevent its business from being affected by sanctions imposed by the United States (US). (photo: Renato Ramos Puma/Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Nvidia seems to be trying to keep its business from being affected by sanctions imposed by the United States (US), quickly completing orders for its high-end GPU.

Last month, the US government announced plans to ban Nvidia from selling GPUs to China and Russia to limit their military capabilities. But on the other hand, the plan can also hinder technological progress in other industries.

Accordingly, Nvidia wants to fulfill or complete some orders for its Ampere A100 and Hopper H100 GPUs to China before the US-imposed sanctions take effect. If the information is correct, it will send Nvidia's revenue skyrocketing and push TSMC's Q4 earnings to new highs as well.

Nvidia naturally wants to fill orders for high-end, high-margin GPU accelerators. Unfortunately, the main customers in China will not be reachable by the green team anytime soon, as the US has imposed sanctions on high-end AI chips.

However, the US government gave the tech companies time to adjust, and imposed a grace period or transition.

Citing WccfTech, Tuesday, September 20, the report states, the A100 chip will be able to be purchased by the Chinese company until March 2023, while the newer architecture H100 chip can be purchased until September next year.

Orders will be filled in two to three months starting with the latest GPU batch compared to the previous five or six months. However, as the ban is imminent, the demand for these GPUs will rise by a huge margin.

While Nvidia has the Ampere A100 GPU ready for production on the 7nm TSMC node, its Hopper H100 is not in sufficient numbers to meet the demands of US customers.

As such, Nvidia is expected to place an urgent order to TSMC for 7nm and 5nm fabrication upgrades on its Ampere A100 and Hopper H100 GPUs. Of course, companies have to pay more for that. But the only way Nvidia can recoup this huge investment is by increasing the selling price of all its GPUs to China.